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Pipers edged by St. Paul

A pair of losses last weekend left the Rosemount Pipers with a 10-12 record heading into next Saturday’s North Star Classic Baseball League Class A state tournament.

On Friday night the Pipers managed just five hits and committed five errors in a 13-1 loss to a Minneapolis Lakers team they defeated by a run three weeks ago at DCTC. The Lakers plated four runs in the bottom of the first and put the game away with eight more in the second.

“We simply left the bats and gloves back in Rosemount,” Pipers manager Ken Fry said.

Jason Schwab provided two of Rosemount’s hits. Grant Kuseske scored the lone run on a Tim Nichols sacrifice fly in the fourth inning.

The Pipers got their bats going back at DCTC Sunday afternoon, but St. Paul’s Finest rallied for two runs in the bottom of the seventh inning to earn a back-and-forth 8-7 victory.

Bobby Downs, Mike Welch and Fry had three hits apiece to pace the Pipers offensively. Welch scored three runs and Fry and Schwab each drove in a pair.

Dan Hegberg went the whole way on the mound, allowing 19 hits and surrendering seven walks over 6 2/3 innings. He also struck out six while throwing 124 pitches.

The game was tied at 2-2, 3-3 and 4-4 before the Pipers scored two runs in the fourth and another in the fifth to move ahead 7-4. St. Paul chipped away with two in the sixth and walked off with two more runs in the seventh.

The NSCBL state tournament gets under way Saturday at Alimagnet Park in Burnsville. The Pipers open play at 12:15.

Matt Steichen has been the sports editor at the Farmington Independent and Rosemount Town Pages since 2007. He holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism and mass communications from Briar Cliff University in Sioux City, Iowa. He has previously been a sports writer at the Sioux City Journal and Le Mars Daily Sentinel and the sports editor at the Austin Daily Herald.